Gatwick airport incident paralyzed UK’s second busiest airport before Christmas 2018 and affected 140,000 passengers. Reason for the disruption were multiple drone sightings near the runway, but even now several weeks after the incident police does not have any real evidence or suspects. What really happened at Gatwick airport?
Photoshopped illustration image. Source: pixabay.com
Gatwick Airport Paralysed During High Season Before Christmas
Just a couple of days before 2018 Christmas season, which is the high season for air traffic, UK’s second busiest airport at Gatwick near London suffered from a major travel disruption (our initial article can be found here). Between 19 and 21 December, hundreds of outbound flights had to be cancelled and hundreds of inbound flights had to be redirected to other airports.
The disruption lasted in total 33 hours and was caused by numerous reports of drone sightings close to the runway. In total there were 115 relevant sightings of which 93 were from “credible witnesses” such as a pilot, airport staff and police officers. About 140,000 passengers and over 1,000 flights in total were affected. It was the biggest disruption since ash from an Icelandic volcano shut the airport in 2010.
In the end, the British army arrived at Gatwick airport to help renew the disrupted traffic. They deployed anti-drone equipment at the airport which can detect and jam communications between a drone and its operator. The system, which is said to have a range of several miles, uses four radars to give 360-degree detection in order to identify and track targets. Shortly after that, the armed forces were again withdrawn from the airport.
Military drone jamming device on the roof of Gatwick airport. Credit: Jack Taylor, Getty Images.
Incident Aftermath, Investigation and £60,000 Bounty
Shortly after the incident when the airport went into operation again, the local police arrested one British couple and brought them in for questioning as they suspected them (they likely received a tip) to be the ones who caused the disruption. Oddly enough, the couple was named publicly in the British yellow press along with their photographs receiving lots of negative publicity. They were questioned for 36 hours and then released without charge on 23rd December – their employers confirmed they were at work during the incident, so could not have been flying drones near the airport. Local Sussex police have since apologized to the local couple for the mistake, but the bad publicity cannot be corrected so easily, of course.
After releasing the couple, Gatwick Airport Limited announced they are offering a £50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible. That’s in addition to the £10,000 offered by Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft through Crimestoppers. Local police searched the surroundings of the airport. They found a damaged drone near the perimeter of the airport near Horley, close to the last reported sighting. The drone is now being examined and it is not yet clear if there is any connection to the incident.
No Drones at All?
There have been some confusing announcements from the local police after the incident. A senior Sussex police officer suggested in one interview that there may have been no drones at all. This was later dismissed as a “misscommunication” and the official statement of the local police remains that they are certain there wes illegal drone flying involved in the incident. Police spokesmen however also admitted that some of the reported drone sightings may have been the public spotting police drones that were searching for the offending drones. Nevertheless, it still seems till this day that the local police are no closer to finding out who did it than they were at the time of the incident.
The Gatwick incident case still remains quite confusing. I am curious how the investigation will continue, but I remain skeptic about the police actually finding the ones responsible for all the mess. Gatwick and Heathrow airports now reportedly invest millions in military anti-drone technology to prevent this type of drone-related disruption in the future.
We decided to write this follow-up post on the topic after our initial report, because we feel that the case became quite confusing, and unfortunately, it remains to be confusing. There is still no real evidence of illegal drone flying at the Gatwick airport. We at cinema5D condemn irresponsible flying of drone and think that every proven drone incident endangering the safety of air traffic should be prosecuted and treated according to the law. We, however, also do not want drone operators or the technology to be falsely accused of such disruptions or incidents.
What do you think of the Gatwick Airport incident? Were you in any way directly affected by it? Let us know in the comments section below.
Sources: BGR, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, One mile at a time, Wikipedia, Sky News

UK’s second busiest airport at Gatwick has grounded all flights and closed its runways since last night, after two drones were seen in close vicinity of the airport. The disruption started on Wednesday 9:00 p.m. local time and is ongoing at the time of writing.
Photoshopped illustration image. Source: pixabay.com
Flying a drone has become so easy and inexpensive lately that virtually anyone can fly one. An increasing number of drones also means an increasing number of problems in the airspace due to reckless behavior. And in reaction to increased restrictions, we’re sure eventually it will be required to get a license to even purchase a drone, thanks to irresponsible pilots.
Increasing Number of Drone Incidents
We all know there are certain restrictions to consider, and one of the major ones is flying a drone near the airports. Impacting an aircraft could have fatal consequences as drones really can cause some serious damage to planes. Still, cases like this happen. In fact, as Reuters states, the number of near misses between private drones and aircraft in Britain more than tripled between 2015 and 2017, with 92 incidents recorded last year, according to the UK Airprox Board.
When it comes to Gatwick airport, it is not their first traffic disruption due to a sighted UAV. We already reported about a similar event back in July 2017. Considering the magnitude of the disruptions, the current one is of course much bigger and more serious affecting thousands of passengers.
The official statement published on Thursday morning on Gatwick Airport’s website says:
All flights to and from Gatwick are currently suspended. If you are due to fly today or are meeting someone from a flight, please do not travel to the airport without checking the status of your flight with your airline first.
Following reports of two drones flying over the Gatwick Airport airfield at around 9pm on Wednesday 19 December, and several further sightings since, our airfield remains closed for safety reasons. We are still investigating these alongside Sussex Police.
Unfortunately, this has led to a significant number of flights being diverted to other airports and all flight arrivals and departures are currently suspended from Gatwick.
Our airlines are working to provide affected passengers with hotel accommodation or transport passengers landing at other airports to Gatwick by other means, and Gatwick staff are looking after passengers in our terminals.
We apologise to any affected passengers for this inconvenience but the safety of our passengers and all staff is our number one priority.
By looking at the live flight information all of today’s flights are currently canceled or diverted to another airport. The Sussex police are of course intensively looking for the drones’ pilot(s) in an attempt to restore service at Gatwick airport. It appears to me as a deliberate act to disrupt the airport, because according to the police the drone keeps appearing again and again near the runway. They said, however, that there are yet no indications to suggest this is terror-related.
Police helicopter looking for drones and their pilot(s) at Gatwick airport. Credit: Pete Summers/PA
As the Irish Examiner reminded, earlier this year new laws came into force which ban all drones from flying above 400ft and within 1km of airport boundaries. Drone users who flout the height and airport boundary restrictions could face an unlimited fine, up to five years in prison, or both. For more information about the current drone laws in the UK, you can take a look at this Trusted Reviews article.
Although we have seen for instance DJI implement No fly zone features in the drones, these were hacked later. I think when someone really looks for a way to cause disruption on an airport, there will unfortunately always be a way. To prevent unwanted restricted airspace violations, there are ways. Like for instance the AirMap app with their real-time geofencing alerts feature which we reported about. There are also talks about jammers being used to prevent drones from even taking off at airports – however those jammers also threaten to affect important technology that is needed to perform take-offs of planes.
What do you think of drone regulations? How would you prevent this from happening more often? Let us know in the comments below.
Sources: Gatwick Airport, USA Today, Reuters, Telegraph, Irish Examiner, Gizmodo, Trusted Reviews